The Office Can Survive Loss of Steve Carell—Just Ask Mindy Kaling

NBC Universal
Steve Carell confirmed today that he'll be leaving NBC's The Office after the upcoming season. He tells E! that the show might find new energy without his Michael Scott character.

He's not necessarily wrong. Conflict is good for any show; and if The Office functions like a real office, with people coming and going, it might not be so bad.

The last sitcom to survive the loss of a major character was probably Cheers, which traded Shelly Long for Kirstie Alley and came out fine. Long-running dramas with big ensembles, such as E.R., have also been able to work around cast changes without losing their audiences or their identities.

Mindy Kaling, who has written roughly 20 episodes of The Office while also playing the charmingly vapid Kelly Kapoor, hinted in an interview a few years back that the show's writers were ready for the challenge of writing an Office sans Michael Scott.

This interview took place before the show Parks and Recreation was on the air, so the stuff she said about Amy Poehler no longer carries much weight. Otherwise, though, Kaling's comments suggest the show's writers feel like they can handle the departure of any cast member. Here is what Kaling said in an interview with The Onion's A.V. Club:

I haven't seen ER in about 10 years, but there's something about ER that I like, which I kind of hope happens with The Office, which is the way that the characters are recycled out and new characters came on. At the beginning, no one cared about the Noah Wyle character, but by season eight, he was a huge star on the show. I feel like that's what we can do with The Office. As John Krasinski goes on to do Ocean's 15 or whatever he's going to star in, we can cycle in some interesting new young actors, and a new boss. My dream is that when Steve leaves the show, we could have Amy Poehler come on as the boss. I think Amy's flawless. I have this fantasy that we'll get this female boss, and at the beginning, she'll seem totally normal and what a relief, and then we'll find out that there's lots of different horrible, crazy kinds of bosses. Or Kathy Bates or something. How funny would that be?

The story arc for next season seems like it could write itself. Michael Scott's main love interest, Holly Flax (played by the hilarious Amy Ryan), is all set to return to the Scranton office of Dunder-Mifflin—this was something that came up in the closing minute of last season's final episode—so it's easy to envision that Michael Scott will woo her, win her back, lose her through some idiotic move, and get her back once again in time for a big fat double episode for May sweeps, in which they will marry and say farewell to Scranton. I'm looking forward to it, partly because there hasn't been such a well-matched TV couple since Ross and Rachel. After that? I agree with Kaling's suggestion that the show's writers will be able to make up for the loss of Carell.